My article about peak oil, which includes an interview with James Howard Kunstler, is now online.

If you’ve ever driven or been driven somewhere, used a plastic container or its contents, eaten the produce of a fertilized field, purchased goods transported by airplane, truck or boat – in short, if you’ve done anything except live the life of a feudal peasant, you have been benefitting massively from oil and its derivatives. Just a few of our favourite oil products include gasoline, diesel, naptha, kerosene, ethylene, propylene, benzene, ammonia, methanol, plastics, synthetic fibres, synthetic rubbers, detergents, and chemical fertilisers.

“Life as we know it today would be extremely difficult without crude oil and its by-products,” declares OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries).

No kidding.

In The Long Emergency, a book I remember making a small media storm upon its release in 2005, author James Howard Kunstler invites us to imagine a world in which oil supply is highly contested, and eventually, a world in which oil might no longer be readily available at all.